Dean tries to catch Ronnie into T1 on the right side, but he has gained no overlap. So Ronnie has the right to defend the corner. Deans sudden lifting the throttle makes him loose the rear end and he has contact with Ronnies rear right tyre, what makes Ronnie airborne and ends his race.
The rules say:
In a corner, after a legitimate overtaking attempt the cars end up side by side. One driver looses control and strays from their side of the track. Contact is made. Warning for driver that moves over.

For the third race we go to Mexico, the standard Papy track, which has a really long start/finish straight and lots of tight twisty sections!

The Pro Drivers will have a free car choice. Drivers will have to remain in that chassis for the rest of the season, they will only be allowed to swap chassis in exceptional circumstances and only with the approval of the moderator.

There will be full moderation of lap one Red Zone and reported incidents for the rest of the race.Please submit incident reports within a week after the race so that the moderators report may be out before the next race.Full time drivers have priority access to the server until 21.00 UK time.Please restrict your chat to a minimum!

The specific division rules for the Pro Trophy have changed as the INT division has been suspended.Handicapping will be introduced from race three onwards and will only affect the top three drivers in the championship. The top three drivers may, at the moderator's discretion, be limited to a slower car. If handicapping is in action then handicapped drivers will be notified in the race post.

For this race only the predominant leader of this championship Hristo will be handicapped as the followers are close together.

I'm not going to play along with this arbitrary decision that has zero logic in it, Axel. Either introduce a solid fair handicap system like the one in Historics, where the top drivers in the standings are handicapped by cars separated in 3 groups, or don't use a handicap at all. This division started with a free car choice for all and I would not accept such subjective decisions to influence the outcome of the championship. We are 3-4 drivers on equal pace right now and you want to ruin my chances by severely handicap me compared to them.

At this very moment I feel like throwing in the towel and giving up GPL!! Tomorrow I might feel differently..

I thought that I had sorted out the probs on my PC and was able to start racing again without the sound slowly breaking up or random 10 second screen freezes. I was actually thinking to myself that I this was one of my personal best races for a long time. I had started 10th on the grid and hunted down the cars in front one at a time. I had worked hard for about 10 laps to catch Florian and managed to make a clean pass, then with 4 laps to go I was closing quickly on Tristan and felt in with a chance of sneaking 2nd place. Hristo was away and clear and there was no way I would catch him.

Just as I was about to start thinking about a passing place..........

The screen freezes and the sound locks into a fast loop sounding like a machine gun and then I get disco'd and CTD!!!! Words cannot describe how totally pi**ed off I am at this moment.

Maybe I should wait till dawn before setting fire to this heap of ******

Those are some crazy issues you've been having lately, Evil. Could it be something hardware, the motherboard perhaps? Doesn't seem like the usual GPL issues, but something else...

As for my race, I didn't make a good getaway, so Florian and Tristan jumped in front. Tristan was immediately setting a storming pace and I couldn't quite find a way past Florian, so for 2 laps I had to follow and wait for an opportunity. This came on the run towards the hairpin and after that it took some time to reel in Tristan, who had great pace on the straights. Even though eventually I managed to pass him, he was benefiting from the slipstream and was holding on. He was obviously not pushing, as he mentioned, so by mid-race I managed to open up a gap, but lost it with a spin, then this repeated a few laps later. Near the end Tristan slowed down a lot and the gap grew from 3-4 seconds to near 30 at the finish.

Something I forgot to mention: since we did not have handicap in this division and we were supposed to use the car we started the season with, I never even bothered to read the race thread and see that Axel wrote I should take the Cooper, otherwise I would have obviously not kept quiet in the days before the race. And in the server, I just don't read the chat, and I also have it turned off in-car. I prefer to focus on my driving. The first time I saw Axel capslock COOPER was when the session was already over, so even if I wanted to I could not change car.

In any case, I really don't think we should employ such a subjective and random form of handicapping instead of a pre-defined system, especially considering the moderators are also racing themselves. If Axel would just bother looking at the first two races he would see there was no dominance by anyone, but a rather equally-matched group of drivers. Florian had all the chances to win in Montjuic and Tristan would have won in Albi, as well as challenge me in this race, had it not been for running out of fuel. I don't see how you can just choose to handicap me based not on pace but on my measly 30 points lead in the championship, which is a result of other people's bad luck and mistakes more than anything. I should pay for it, is that it?

As I wrote to Paul some weeks ago when the Intermediates merged with Pro's, it might be a good thing to use the Historics system here to give those Inter drivers a chance to compete on more equal footing, but I would rather simply not race if this biased and irrational handicap is maintained. I did not sign up for Pro's to struggle in an underpowered car against drivers who have a competitive machinery and are just about as quick as myself, if not even quicker on occasions. I didn't see anyone complaining when Tristan was beating me last season and leading comfortably in the standings. In the end the best driver should win the championship, but I can't see this happening if you impose such kind of handicaps whenever you wish. It's a knee-jerk reaction and has too much influence on the championship, ending up in standings that do not reflect the true performance of the drivers.

First of all I want to apologize to Natan who was a victim of my spin in L2 T1! SORRY!

To make it clear, I am not a friend of any handicap! When I took over the Pros I abandoned it and it worked fine.

In S24 we have the special situation to have submitted the Ints and some drivers were not voluntary in the Pros, so we had to change the rules! Hristo, the rules are written since the first race post, clear saying that from the 3rd race on there will be a handicap! You had a ~50% points advantage to the second for whatever reason.

My thoughts of giving you the Cooper were that if I use the handicap for the first 3, you would have been in a BT7 for shure....

Logged

Axel "Cookie"

Poor man, not seeing the stars without being hit in the face.My translation of an aphorism of Stanislaus Jercy Lec

Last season had no handicap. If this season would have handicap and you put me in BT7, then you would also have to give Tristan and Florian the Cooper. How can you justify that only I should be handicapped? And it doesn't end with just the 3 of us, then you would have to handicap some drivers to BT11, Honda and so on. It's going backwards in terms of rules, going back to the ridiculous situation we had a few seasons ago when the top drivers could barely compete on equal footing (on some tracks racing for 4-5th instead of 1st). Why can't we have a fair handicap system if we should have any, instead of this?

As for the rules, yes, I know how the season started, but last season was the same thing and nobody was ever handicapped, even when the points gap increased between drivers at the top, whether due to bad luck or mistakes. It is the same situation right now, I merely benefited from the mistakes or bad luck of others, but in terms pace we're quite evenly matched. Handicapping just me is like handing over victories to the others, because there's no way in hell I would be able to compete against them in a Cooper.

If instead we employ the fair championship-standings based handicap system, then it will all sort out itself automatically and keep the championship close and alive all the way through the season. It has been proven to be the case over and over again in the divisions that use that system. For me it's the only fair system we have and it has been improved in the F2s this season where the slowest cars are only ever used if someone leads the championship by more than 50 points. Before this Mexico race I had a lead of about 30 points, not 50 as you say...

My main problem is with this: "The top three drivers may, at the moderator's discretion, be limited to a slower car." It's too vague and subjective.

...My main problem is with this: "The top three drivers may, at the moderator's discretion, be limited to a slower car." It's too vague and subjective.

But we all agreed to it when we signed up to race in this series.

In the F2 Lights, I'm qualifying from 4th to 8th (a full second and half off your pace), keeping my nose clean, benefitting from other's misfortunes (discos, etc.) and somehow find myself leading the series (with a smaller margin than you started Mexico with). The series rules say the leaders "may" be assigned a slower car (wow, it's vague and subjective, too). It DOES NOT SAY "they may be assigned a slower car unless they're only leading due to other's misfortunes or mistakes". It DOES NOT SAY that whatever happened (or didn't) last season has an effect on this one. So I'm in a Cooper for Watkins, among drivers who I KNOW are faster than me? Yay, bring it on.

I did agree on it before the merge with the division. We raced under the same rule last season as well and the handicap was never used. Why? Because it's supposed to be used only when someone is completely dominating the series, pace-wise. This is obviously not the case at the moment.

And for F2s it's the same thing, I don't agree you should be handicapped at all, it makes absolutely no sense. On what basis are you being handicapped? Just because you happen to lead in the standings? If this is the case, then where is the line drawn, at how many points, at what pace difference, etc. etc.? It's TOO subjective and unfair because over the course of the season it may put one driver at more disadvantage than another, and thus influence the outcome of the championship.

We were supposed to use the Historic system for F2, with the addition of Ferrari and Brabham only forced upon someone who has 50 or more points gap, as those cars turned out to be way too slow last season. I really don't see any logical reason why that system is not being used and instead we have to rely on this irrational and inconsistent kind of handicap, I really don't.

...I really don't see any logical reason why that system is not being used and instead we have to rely on this irrational and inconsistent kind of handicap, I really don't...

But:

Quote

...I did agree on it before the merge with the division...

So any concerns you have about the system for NEXT season should be raised in an appropriate thread. The rules for this season were published in advance and agreed to by all concerned. If you do not want to play by the rules you agreed to, the door is that-a-way.

Quote

..."The top three drivers may, at the moderator's discretion, be limited to a slower car." It's too vague and subjective.

I trust the moderators here to use their best judgement. As you don't, why are you here?

Your choice is your choice, don't impose it on me. I can't just follow this blindly and ignore irrational decisions. It's like you're telling me "sacrifice your own racing because you should", well no. If there is a better method (and there is), why insist on using a flawed system and sacrifice a whole season? It makes no sense and whether you chose to ignore that or not, it doesn't change the facts.

The reason I didn't bring it up before the season is exactly because I expected a fair judgement, just like last season, but when I see such massive difference that would affect the championship, I can't accept it. It is because of such thinking as yours that some issues have been carried over season after season instead of being fixed on time.

Just look at the fastest laps: 1:50.709 <> 1:51.696 ~ 1sec difference to the second, that's the logic and ratio I used to only handicap you for this race, to make it more equal!

The last season worked fine as you had chosen a more difficult car...

You take things out of context, Axel. If you actually take all facts into account, you would know that:

1) Tristan had the slightly slower car for this track (Honda), though it is quicker on some other type of tracks. Plus it was up to him to take any car he wanted, so he sort of imposed a handicap on himself for some races by taking Honda. Do I have to pay for that? Did anyone pay for the fact we at Waza raced Honda for years, on purpose? I don't think so...

2) He said he didn't push because he didn't know if I was going to be DQ or not.

3) He slowed down in the last part of the race when the fuel is at its lowest and you do fastest laps.

4) I only pushed for fastest lap near the end, because it's the easiest thing to do, but it's still a gamble. It's not possible to drive like that through the whole distance.

You can't just look at lap times and assume things based solely on that... it's unrealistic and skips a lot of other factors.

It's a much better judgement to look at race replays and see how things unfold. And as I said, even if I'm slightly quicker, and if we assume all other factors equal (consistency etc.), even if that's not really the case (because I'm not so consistent at all and I make mistakes), shouldn't the best driver win the championship? How do you justify handicapping me to almost the slowest car in the mod without handicapping anyone else?

And again - give me one good reason why we shouldn't use the systematic approach to handicapping based on championship position where drivers are gradually grouped into cars, top 3 or 4 in the standings, instead of just subjectively deciding at any point in time who should drive what? Sorry, but with your last post you just prove you don't take all things into account to make a fair judgement on this.